


Marked

by Bookaholic346



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gen, Not Everyone Gets a Happy Ending, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 9,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookaholic346/pseuds/Bookaholic346
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one knows where they came from, nor why they appeared in the first place. One day they were suddenly there, and the whole world went mental. At least, they did when people figured out what the strange pictures imprinted on each person's skin meant.</p><p>Soulmate AU series focusing on a wide range of characters in small snapshot chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Marks of the Soul

There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to how they were applied. No one knows where they came from, nor why they appeared in the first place. One day they were suddenly there, and the whole world went mental. At least, they did when people figured out what the strange pictures imprinted on each person's skin _meant._

It all happened a long time ago, long before Konoha was even founded. What was once puzzling witchcraft was now a well documented human phenomenon. Every child was born with a mark on the underside of their wrist. Most of the time this mark signified which hand the child would use dominantly as well, but there were exceptions, like the few children that were born ambidextrous. It was also widely known that a person could find a matching mark on their soulmate, should they be patient enough to look for that person.

Of course, things were rarely so simple. The marks were sometimes generic and open to interpretation. Some poor people had to match up with only vague shapes to fit together. At least there was the added component of colour-coding to help, but it wasn't all that uncommon for people to get mixed up. Then there was the fact that soulmates were not necessarily romantic mates. A lot of people were, but even more were paired up in parent/child, teacher/student, master/servant, sibling, rival and friendship pairs. Finding your soulmate was often only the beginning, because after you finally found one another you then had to decide what you wanted that person to mean to you. It was frankly exhausting, and Kakashi decided from a rather young age that he wanted nothing to do with it.

It had nothing to do with the fact that his parents had been soulmates, and that he saw first hand what it did to a someone to lose the other half of their soul.

Not at all.

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup... she's starting another series without finishing the ones she's already got... please don't throw things at me...  
> I was binge reading the other day when I came across the idea of the Soulmate identifying mark plot device, and I decided to be predictable and try it out for myself. This series isn't exactly heavy reading, and all the chapters are going to be short and sweet, so feel free not to take this too seriously. It's just something I wanted to try writing, and it turned out pretty okay, so I thought I'd share with the class :)


	2. A false lead?

Minato had a bit of a secret. He wasn't thinking of fighting when he purchased his first set of three-pronged kunai at age twelve. He never even thought about how perfect the wide wooden handles would be for experimenting with that teleportation jutsu he'd been playing around with for the past couple of months. All he could think about was how eerily similar those weapons displayed in the shop window were to the odd shaped blade clamped in the mouth of the red fox inked on his right wrist. In a fit of romanticism, he eagerly purchased the kunai, not even caring that the set of six almost wiped out his entire meagre savings.

Of course, nothing really happened after he bought the blades. No girl popped up in his life, interested in the kunai and tracing the inside of her wrist suspiciously. The wild hope that he might be able to find another person who favoured the weapon and forge a connection with them was dashed almost right away. The shopkeeper that sold them to him looked surprised that anyone was actually interested in the kunai at all. He'd ordered them to use in his shop as display weapons, and hadn't sold a single one yet. The only six in Konoha were now owned by Minato.

He could have ended it there. He could have shoved the kunai at the back of his weapons drawer, dejected. Only... why had he never thought of applying the Hiraishin seals to Kunai? It would be the perfect solution to his current problem: namely that he couldn't yet apply seals with a single brush of chakra, like the Nidaime could. With his seals inked directly onto kunai, Minato could just throw his seals where he needed to teleport, bypassing the need to drop seals onto inanimate objects in the field. He tried to apply the seals to his usual kunai first, but they were just too much of an awkward shape. The handle was too narrow for his seal. It was only after a frustrating all-nighter trying to cram his seal onto a space that didn't want to contain it that he stumbled across those gaudy three-pronged kunai once again. The seal fit on the wooden handle like the kunai had been designed for it.

Not such a waste of money after all, Minato thought smugly.

So Minato decided to forgive the three-pronged kunai for failing to lead him to his soulmate and adopt them as his new signature weapon. Soon whenever the name 'Minato Namikaze' was uttered all across the elemental nations, the images that came to mind were all yellow flashes and distinctively shaped kunai.

That shopkeeper made an absolute killing selling him kunai for the next twelve years.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It doesn't take a genius to figure out who could possibly have the matching mark to Minato, does it?  
> For the record, her's is yellow.


	3. School Girl Crush

Like so many girls at the Academy with a crush on the aloof number one student, Rin Nohara was halfway convinced that Kakashi had a pin-wheel of three stretched triangles imprinted on his wrist too. She couldn't help but wonder why the circular design on her own wrist was a rusty orange colour, which seemed like the colour least likely to be associated with Kakashi, but she reasoned that it might be a colour representative of his inner personality rather than his outer stoic façade. She wondered if the triangles were coloured purple on his wrist. Rin had always suspected that her soulmate's corresponding mark would be the same colour as the markings on her cheeks. She rather liked purple.

Unfortunately, it seemed unlikely that Rin would ever find out if Kakashi had a matching mark. While they were at the Academy Kakashi wore long sleeves, hiding his mark as zealously as he did his face. By the time that Rin graduated and found herself on the same team as her crush, Kakashi had started wearing arm guards that covered his wrists even more thoroughly than his long sleeves ever did.

Rin could have plotted to peek under her teammate's arm guards. She had plenty of opportunity. She could have tried to accidentally cut them off in a training spar. She could have snatched a glimpse while she was on watch and the rest of the team were sleeping. Kakashi let his guard down around the three of them enough that she could have done it easily (maybe).

But Rin never did. It seemed like such a gross invasion of Kakashi's privacy that she could never bring herself to do it, even when she was _sure_ that their marks matched.

She was _sure_.

She was.

Mostly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious to know exactly what Rin's mark looks like, google a picture of Obito's mangekyo sharingan.


	4. Multi-coloured

Jiraiya of the Sannin was a very strange person, Obito decided exactly thirty-two seconds after meeting the man. It might have been the strange hopping dance he did as part of his introduction. It might have been the fact that this introduction was happening in a dingy alleyway next to one of Konoha's bathhouses.

After careful consideration, Obito decided that Jiraiya was mostly strange because he was one of the few shinobi in the world that didn't even make a token effort to cover up his soul mark.

Obito saw it. As marks go, it wasn't enormously detailed. A single stylised leaf blowing on a swirling gust of air. What made Obito gape was the fact that Jiraiya's mark was made up of _two_ colours. The green leaf was being blown by a yellow swirl of wind. The Toad Sage didn't have one soul mate, he had _two._

After a few minutes of almost blatantly staring at the unusual mark, Obito suddenly remembered why Jiriaya made almost no effort to cover the mark up. It was common knowledge in the village that the Legendary Sannin were a team of soulmates. The three of them had been outed during an epic length fight with Hanzo of the Salamander during the Second Shinobi War. It was said that the only one of the three that bothered to cover their mark these days was Orochimaru, who was reportedly still rather disgruntled that he was '...stuck with these losers for eternity.'.

Obito recalled all this information rather too late though, because the older ninja caught him staring before he could look away. The old guy laughed and winked, asking him if he'd ever seen a multi-coloured mark before.

Obito hastily shook his head and frantically looked to his teacher to rescue him from this conversation. He hadn't meant to stare, and he promptly went bright red with the embarrassment of getting caught goggling someone else's soul mark. It shouldn't matter that Jiraiya wore the mark out in the open. It was _rude_ to stare at someone's mark.

“Multi-coloured marks are rare sensei.” Minato-sensei said with an eye roll. “...and you practically flaunt it, can you blame my students for staring?”

Jiraiya roared with laughter again as Obito finally got over his own embarrassment long enough to see that Rin's cheeks were flushed too. Even the small part of Kakashi's face that was visible was tinged pink. It seemed that Obito hadn't been the only one staring.

Minato sighed at his teacher's loudness and turned back to his students. “Jiraiya-sensei and his team probably have the only multi-coloured mark in Konoha.” He explained. “It's exceedingly rare to have two colours on a mark, so really Sensei should be used to people staring by now.” He shot a bemused glare at the older man, as if wondering what he was supposed to do with him.

Jiraiya waved a hand at his former student as his laughter died away. “Come on, multi-colours aren't _that_ rare.” He huffed. “I'd bet there are quite a few covering them up in this village. Some of the uptight traditionalists don't think it's proper for a person to have more than one soulmate, so those that do tend to keep quiet about it.”

“Have you ever met anyone else with more than one soulmate?” Rin piped up, curiosity now replacing her former flustered look.

Jiraiya grinned. “You mean apart from the Hime and Snake-bastard?” He joked.

Rin's mouth fell open at the Toad Sage's terms of address for two of the most powerful shinobi in Konoha. Obito felt his own mouth do something similar. Was that really how soulmates addressed one another? With blatant disrespect?

Jiraiya shrugged and continued talking, seemingly oblivious to their shock. “Well... I haven't met anyone in Konoha, but I ran into a trio of kids in Rain that had marks on each other during the last war.”

“Really?” Minato-sensei said in surprise. This was evidently a new story to him too.

“Yeah.” Jiraiya's voice softened like he was lost in nostalgia for the moment. “...they were good kids.”

Obito really didn't want to ask what happened to them. The fact that Jiraiya referred to them in the past tense was enough to make him feel slightly uncomfortable. From the silence that fell after Jiraiya trailed off, nobody else really wanted to know either.

“What about more than two colours?” Kakashi asked suddenly. “Ever met anyone like that?”

The whole group blinked out of their collective stupor to face the one member of the group that was the least likely to show active interest in a conversation about soul marks. It was kind of common knowledge that Kakashi didn't care for all that soulmate stuff, he was more interested in the shinobi code than true love.

Jiraiya blinked at him. “More than two?” He repeated. “Geez kid, getting a little greedy there, don't you think?”

Kakashi just shrugged. “If three people can be soulmates, then in theory four can be too, right?”

Obito rolled his eyes. So it wasn't that Kakashi was suddenly interested in human attachment; he was just doing the genius thing of forming random new theories and then smugly proving them correct.

Minato-sensei looked thoughtful. “In theory...” He said slowly. “I suppose there's no reason why not.” He decided.

“Wonder what that would be like...” Jiraiya snorted. “Three or more soulmates...” he started to giggle.

“Sensei.” Minato-sensei said sharply. “Stop it. They're only ten.”

Jiraiya stopped giggling sharply to gaze down at the three of them with a sheepish expression. “I was... I was thinking about... bees...”

For a ninja, Obito thought that Jiraiya might have been one of the worst liars he'd ever met.

He still had no idea what the old man had really been thinking about though. Judging by the look on Minato-sensei's face, he didn't want to ask.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll leave it open to interpretation how exactly the soulmate relationship works between the Sannin. You can go with the 'closer than siblings, fire-forged friends' route, or if you want to sink a little further into the gutter there could be a kinky threesome going on there. Whatever.  
> I will say this though; in my opinion the Ame Orphans have a little bit of a more complicated soulmate relationship. Konan/Yahiko were still a thing, and Nagato's probably cool with that. I kind of think that his friends' happiness would have been worth a lot more to Nagato than trying to force a romantic connection. Heck, maybe Nagato is the asexual friend who gets everything he needs emotionally from the other two already without the gooey romantic stuff. Part of the point of this fic is that soulmates aren't always romantic partners, everyone is different, and that's true even within soulmate circles of three or more.


	5. Hide your Heart

War was a horrible time to be looking for your soulmate. When you lived in a time of conflict it was quite sensible to cover up your mark and pretend that it didn't exist until the world was a safer place. After all, what was the point of finally finding your soulmate only to lose them in battle the next day? Better to save yourself the pain and block that all out.

Then there was the danger that no one liked to think about.

What if your soulmate is on the other side?

It had happened before. Soul marks transcended mortal conflicts and borders. There were enough stories of missing-nin rashly fleeing Konoha to elope with an enemy soulmate that it was wartime policy to avoid showing the enemy your soul mark at all costs.

Asuma really didn't want to think about the other, decidedly less pleasant stories out there. The ones about soulmates killing each other in battle and only realising their match when they searched the body for intel. Asuma would have written off those horror stories as irrational: what would be the chances of that happening? But then he found out why his grand-uncle had never gotten married when the old drunk started trading war stories one night at a clan meeting. The very thing that Asuma had assumed never happened due to being statistically impossible _had_ happened. Daijiro-jii had been cornered by a group of mist nin in the opening weeks of the First War. His superior skill had let him kill his captors by the skin of his teeth. He lost an eye and two fingers to the man leading the group, but he survived. He looted the entire squad for spare weapons and supplies seeing as he'd lost most of his own in the struggle. When he yanked the gloves off the youngest member of the group he caught sight of the indigo monkey on her wrist. It was the same monkey pressed into Daijiro's own skin in icy blue.

“She was beautiful.” The old man slurred. “And I killed her.”

Asuma dreaded something like that happening to him. He was doubtful he could survive something like that with his sanity intact. Daijiro-jii certainly didn't.

So Asuma kept both his wrists securely covered with black wristbands, and he made sure never to look at an enemy's wrists. If he killed his own soulmate, he didn't want to know. If he had it his way, the crimson trench knife tangled in a vine would stay hidden forever. He didn't want to find his soulmate, nor did he want his soul mate to find him.

His elder brother gifted him a set of custom chakra blades for his thirteenth birthday.

Trench knives.

He still didn't want to know.

Then she took three shuriken to the chest right in front of him.

He killed the missing-nin that dared to hurt her, mechanically dressed her wounds, picked her up, slung her across his back and _sprinted_ back to Konoha like the hounds of hell were chasing him. She was limp the whole way back. Her right arm was draped awkwardly across over his shoulder, her wrist staring him in the face.

The bandages she used to hide her soul mark had come loose in the fight.

An ash-grey trench knife covered in a flowering vine stared at him the whole way back to Konoha.

Asuma was fifteen years old, and he knew right then and there that if he lost Kurenai he would die.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just had to throw these two in there. I always thought they might be the best canon couple, but that's just my personal opinion.


	6. Family Ties

The Hyuuga clan had very little patience for the frivolities known as soulmate marks. They were a noble clan that intermarried with the sole purpose of dutifully carrying on the genes for the Byakugan. Every match was carefully considered to try and produce strong offspring to fight for the clan. As such, Himawari Hyuuga knew from a very young age that she was to marry Hiashi Hyuuga upon her sixteenth birthday. The fact that his soul mark was a white imprint of the Hyuuga family crest and her own was a pale lavender coloured sunflower was besides the point. They were not soulmates, but they were to be husband and wife regardless.

Himawari was twelve when she collided with Hiashi in the hallway of the main house and managed to knock him down. When she looked up to apologise, the words died in her mouth.

The teenager she had mowed down was not her intended, as she'd thought, but his younger twin.

Hizashi gave her a tired smile as he helped her to her feet. She felt dreadfully guilty about knocking him down. Whereas Hiashi spent most of his time in Konoha, helping his father run the clan, Hizashi was a newly promoted jonin running missions full time. Himawari was well aware of the fact that Hizashi had just returned from a gruelling stretch manning one of the border posts near Kumo. He had to be utterly exhausted, and now she'd gone and made his day even worse by nearly trampling him to death in his own home!

“S...sorry...” She muttered, ducking her head.

“It's fine.” Hizashi said warmly. “You were in a hurry. It happens.”

There was an awkward silence. Himawari never quite knew what to say to Hizashi. The boy was technically part of the head house, and therefore had a much higher than her in status within the clan (for now). On the other hand though, Hizashi was branded with the caged bird seal and an official branch house member, while she was member of the main house with an unmarked forehead.

Hizashi suddenly stiffened and lunged forward, making Himawari flinch. He wasn't lunging for her though, he had darted forward to scoop up one of his gauntlets off the ground. The metal guard had slipped off when the two of them had collided, leaving Hizashi's wrist uncovered. Before the boy could jam the gauntlet back on his right hand however, Himawari looked down and saw _it_.

“Oh.” She said sheepishly.

Hizashi tugged the glove back on his hand with a sigh of resignation. “Yeah...” He said somewhat bitterly.

“Does... Hiashi-sama... know?” Himawari asked slowly.

Hizashi shrugged. “I do not know.” He said stiffly. “I have covered it up for as long as I can remember.”

Before Himawari could say another word, the younger twin turned around and walked away, clutching at his wrist like the black imprint of the Hyuuga family crest was burning a hole in his arm.

Himawari never dared ask her husband whether he was aware of the fact that his own twin brother was his soulmate. Part of her felt like it wasn't her place. Another part of her suspected that Hiashi knew perfectly well who his soulmate was. The more stubborn part of her figured that if Hiashi was too stupid to see just how much his twin meant to him, then he didn't deserve to know.

Yet another part of her told her to keep her nose out of Hiashi's business. It wasn't as if she'd done the whole soulmate thing very well either. By the time she was twenty and expecting her first child she still had no idea who her soulmate was supposed to be. She wasn't looking either. She was married to Hiashi, and that was that.

The moment that the midwife handed Himawari her baby her mouth fell open.

“Oh.” She gasped.

There, printed in tiny perfection on baby Hinata's arm, was a pale yellow sunflower.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before people bite my head off, I just wanted to point out that the purpose behind this chapter was to explore some of the non-romantic relationships that soulmates can have in this AU. There is a reason that Hinata is her mother's soulmate rather than Naruto's, and we'll get to that later. Don't think that I've sunk the NaruHina ship just yet either.  
> On another note, the reason that I called Hinata's mother Himawari was because I thought that (from what I could see) Hinata has a close relationship with her own daughter, the canon Himawari Uzumaki. I think that it would actually be rather nice for Hinata to name her daughter after her sorely missed mother.


	7. Outsider

Kakashi sometimes wonders if she knew. If maybe that was the reason she looked so relieved to be jumping to her death that day. He could never bring himself to ask that question to the memorial stone though. Saying it aloud would be acknowledging that it was true.

Kakashi saw Obito's soul mark once. It was after the first time that Team Minato had found themselves caught in an ambush. It was the first time that Obito and Rin were forced to take a life. Sensei had taken it upon himself to check up on Rin, who was shaking so badly that Kakshi suspected that she was seriously going into shock. Obito, on the other hand, was rock still. His skin ghostly white, and he washed his hands in a nearby stream as if in a trance. He didn't even seem to realise that Kakashi was there.

Kakashi had never been a very social person. He certainly didn't know how to comfort someone, but he had to give it a try anyway, because they couldn't afford to be slowed down by two catatonic genin in the middle of a hostile zone. Minato-sensei was trying to get through to Rin, so it was up to him to jolt Obito out of his stupor himself.

Kakashi cleared his throat, frantically trying to remember what exactly Minato-sensei had said to make him feel better after his own first experience of taking a life.

Then Kakashi saw it.

An inky-purple pinwheel. Three triangles linked together in a circular design. Obito's soul mark.

All of Kakashi's words died in his throat.

He'd seen Minato-sensei's soul mark before. It was years ago, back when Sensei had been trying to convince him that soul marks weren't a waste of space. He was seven, and Minato-sensei had just gotten the guts to show Kushina Uzumaki his mark to see if they matched.

They did.

Minato-sensei's mark was pretty though. A red fox and three-pronged kunai. It fit Kushina-nee and Sensei very well. Sensei still didn't manage to convince Kakashi that his own soul mark wasn't pointless though. Kakashi had no interest in tracking down his own soulmate. He was somewhat vocal about the fact that he thought the whole system stupid.

It hurt more than it should have, to see Obito's soul mark. It was like getting all of his breath kicked out of him to see that little purple mark. To see the mark that matched up perfectly with Rin. He knew what Rin's soul mark looked like, of course. Lots of girls seemed to conveniently flash their marks at him, and Rin was no exception. She wasn't the most obvious girl to try and tempt him via soul mark, but she still did it. Her mark was an orange pin-wheel: a perfect copy of the mark on Obito's skin.

Kakashi had turned on his heel and marched away from where Obito scrubbed his hands. His chest was tight. For some reason he couldn't stand to look at the other boy at that moment.

It wasn't because he was harbouring some sort of secret wish that the Uchiha might have matched _him_ instead of Rin. He might have had to jump off a cliff if it had turned out that Obito was his soulmate.

Now, standing here in front of the memorial stone and looking back on the afternoon that he saw Obito Uchiha's soul mark, Kakashi finally realised why it had hurt so much to find out that Rin and Obito had that connection.

There was no room for Kakashi anymore.

Minato-sensei had Kushina-nee. Now it was confirmed that Obito had Rin. Where was Kakashi supposed to fit in there? His entire team had paired off and left him behind. Maybe he didn't want any of them to be his soulmates (except sensei... that might have been okay), but that didn't mean he wanted them to go off and find their own. He just wanted things to stay the same as it always had: the four of them together.

In the end, he'd been left behind just as he'd feared. Only it was worse. First Obito had died, never knowing of the little orange mark on Rin's wrist. Then Rin seemed to have a sort of epiphany at Obito's memorial service, and fell into a downward spiral that ended with Kakashi's own fist through her chest. Finally Minato-sensei had given up his life in order to save the village and seal the kyuubi inside the small child born of his and Kushina's love.

They didn't just leave him behind. They disappeared for good.

Kakashi was so very, very tired of being alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, in emo-land with Kakashi...


	8. Different

For a long time, Sakura couldn't figure out why her mother insisted upon her wearing the wide red wristband on her right arm. Sure, she knew it was about the strange mark that had been on her skin from the moment she was born. All of the other kids had them too, and their parents also made them cover them.

But there was something different about her mother's desperation to keep her mark covered, like something horrible would happen if she showed it to a single other person. That only made Sakura even more confused, because her mother didn't cover up her own mark. She wore it proudly out in the open, flaunting it with three quarter sleeves and smug hand gestures.

After careful consideration, Sakura came to the conclusion that only adults could show other people their marks. Some of her playmates' mothers wore their marks out in the open too. Her father didn't, but that seemed more out of habit and the fact that his work clothes had long sleeves than a deliberate choice on his part.

Then a boy at the park lost his wristband while playing, and the whole world turned upside down on Sakura. She expected the boy's mother to be furious, like her mother had been the time that Sakura had almost forgotten to wear her band before going out to play. Instead the woman had rolled her eyes and playfully swatted him on the head, lamenting the fact that he was always losing _something._ She didn't seem to care that most of the kids playing with him had seen the green cat on his arm by the time she came to pick him up.

Sakura just couldn't figure it out. Was there something wrong with her mark in particular?

So Sakura did what she always did when she was at a loss. She asked her Daddy.

The man stared at her blankly so a few minutes before his gaze flickered down to her wrist.

“Well... sweetheart... there's nothing _wrong_ with your mark, really... it's just...” Her father floundered, trying to grasp the words he wanted to say without much success.

“Is it because it's not a flower like yours and Mommy's?” Sakura's face crumpled. She'd been jealous of her mother and father's marks for a long time. While they had a branch of cherry blossoms on their wrists, Sakura's mark was just a bunch of overlapping circles, nothing pretty or interesting at all.

“No!” Her father said hurriedly. “It doesn't matter in the slightest that you don't have a flower mark. Everyone has a different one.”

“Then why does Mommy make me cover it up? Is it that ugly?” Sakura bit her lip. Her mark may not be as pretty as her parents', but she thought the circles were quite striking.

“No... it's not ugly sweetheart... it's just... well...” Her father was looking around frantically for escape now, and he finally found it in the appearance of Sakura's mother. “Honey, Sakura seems to think that her mark is ugly...”

The woman stared at her husband and daughter for a long moment, then darted forward to scoop her little girl up in a tight hug.

“Oh darling, your mark isn't ugly at all!” She crooned. “Why would you think that? Every mark is special and beautiful!”

Sakura couldn't stop the tears welling up in her eyes. “But Mommy makes me hide it!” She sniffed.

Her mother smoothed a gentle hand over her fluffy pink hair. “I know.” She said sadly. “I'm sorry... it's just because your soul mark is a little... different... to others.”

“Different?” Sakura frowned. “How?”

“You know how Mommy and Daddy's marks only have one colour?” Her mother twisted her wrist to show Sakura the maroon cherry blossoms scattered on her skin. “Everyone else is like that too.”

Sakura blinked in surprise. “But I...” Her mouth fell open as realisation dawned. Her mother made her cover up because her mark was made up of more than one colour?!

“Exactly.” Her mother nodded. “And it's not exactly... decent... having more than one colour...” She coughed nervously. “So Mommy just wants to protect you, you see. I don't want people saying nasty things about my baby just because your soul mark is different to theirs.”

Sakura buried her face in her mother's shoulder, sniffing in regret. So this was the reason that she shouldn't show anyone the mark on her skin. She was a freak who didn't fit in, and if anyone found out then they would make fun of her. Suddenly Sakura didn't like the circles on her wrist as much anymore.

She would never forget her wristband ever again. Nobody was allowed to see.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set before Sakura starts the Academy, maybe even before she even decided she wanted to be a ninja. For the purposes of this fic Sakura's parents are both civilians. They mean well, but trying to protect Sakura from scrutiny here just kick-starts the poor girl's list of insecurities. She grows up to be even more paranoid of showing other people her mark than Kakashi was when he was little. Not even Ino gets a peek.


	9. Severed

Itachi Uchiha was at a crossroads. He'd been hesitating at this particular fork in the road for a long time, and he could finally procrastinate no longer. He had to make his decision tonight. His clan or the village.

Total war or genocide.

It was depressing how quickly he decided his course of action. The people of Konoha outnumbered the clan, and for the most part his clansmen were already guilty of a crime punishable by death. The best he could do now was minimise the damage by making sure that his kinsmen had quick, clean deaths, and take on the blame himself to salvage what was left of the Uchiha's honour. Killing those only guilty by association made him feel ill, but if he spared them all the rest of the village would know that the attack wasn't an indiscriminate massacre perpetrated by a madman, but rather a systematic execution. It wouldn't take long for any reasonably intelligent person to connect the dots, and the Uchiha name would be thrown in the mud.

His only comfort was a promise. A single survivor would be allowed, and Itachi had every intention of making sure that single survivor was Sasuke. His brother was going to live, and it was that thought alone which kept him going.

He repeated that thought like a mantra as he robotically pulled out all his mission gear. He had to go over each and every piece of shinobi equipment that he owned, checking for damage and imperfections. He had to decide what he was going to seal away into storage scrolls to carry with him and what to leave behind. Any essential items that weren't up to scratch had to be replaced immediately. Everything had to be perfect, because after tonight, he wasn't just going to be able to restock at his favourite weapons shop. Starting tomorrow he would be constantly on the run, and it will take months to build up contacts in the missing-nin community in order to re-stock and update his gear.

It was after he finished checking his arm guards for mobility and had removed them once again that it caught his eye. A flash of dark green on the underside of his wrist winked at him, and he paused in his task to finger the mark lightly.

Very few people had ever seen the mark on Itachi Uchiha's wrist. His mother and father, certainly. Shisui had seen it too. Itachi had no idea whether his little brother had seen it or not. He'd certainly never actively shown it to Sasuke. Itachi was somewhat amused by the rumour circulating about him that he didn't have a soul mark. Some idiots thought that true geniuses didn't have marks because they were complete souls on their own; superior to normal humans because they weren't missing half of themselves from birth. Itachi couldn't suppress a snort at the thought. He was as human as anyone else, and he too had a soul mark.

He did wonder about the Copy-nin though, if there was any merit to the thought that super geniuses didn't have soul marks, Kakashi Hatake would be the proof. The man did not have an established soulmate, and everyone even remotely close to him had already been ruled out as a match. Even his dead teammates were later confirmed as matching each other, not him, and the Yondaime had been matched to his wife.

Itachi's own mark was simple and small. It was a bottle green spider lily, blooming alone on his pale skin. For years, Itachi had wiled away spare moments contemplating what the flower on his wrist could mean, and how it was supposed to lead him to his other half. The spider lily was a rather morbid flower, after all, so it had often confused him that it should be the symbol chosen to represent love to him.

Now, as he stared at the flower, Itachi finally realised what his soul mark actually meant. He focussed his chakra into his left hand, feeling his non-dominant hand heat up with a basic fire jutsu he could perform without hand seals. Slowly, but without hesitation, he pressed his burning palm against the skin of his right wrist, barely flinching as the heat seared into his arm. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils, and Itachi slowly let his left hand fall away.

All that was left of the green spider lily was a blotchy stretch of red and black scarred tissue. He bandaged it up carefully and turned back to checking his weapons.

In the language of flowers, the spider lily represented abandonment, lost memories and the promise never to meet again. How fitting for a pair of soulmates who's love was destined to die before they'd even met.

Across the village, an exhausted genin girl collapsed onto her bed for a nap before dinner, barely noticing the tingling sensation that burned across the image of the scarlet spider lily imprinted on her wrist.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this chapter, even though it's so tragic. You'd think that Sasuke and Itachi might be sibling soulmates, but I have other plans for the little brother. I like the idea of Itachi sacrificing a future with someone destined to love him in order to do his duty. It's the kind of person Itachi is that he'd give up the possibility of true love to do what he must to protect the Uchiha name and his little brother.  
> I took the meaning of the spider lily flower from the hanakotoba wikipedia page, so in no way am I pretending to be an expert in the japanese language of flowers. Do look up that wikipedia page though, I thought it was quite interesting :)


	10. The Flames of Hell

To say that Shikamaru Nara was disappointed when his best friend showed him his soul mark for the first time was a bit of an understatement. Like any good ninja-in-training, Shikamaru never let his disappointment show on his face. He reacted exactly the way that Choji expected him to react, with awe and curiosity. It was an act of extreme trust to show another person your soul mark, and Shikamaru was thrilled that Choji thought so highly of him.

The mark was interesting to examine, even though Shikamaru didn’t have the faintest clue as to what it might mean. Shikamaru could only deduce that Choji’s soulmate was a warrior of some sort, because the katana on Choji’s wrist could not possibly be referring to his friend. The aspect of the mark linked to the plump boy was obviously the butterfly perched on the blade’s hilt.

Shikamaru _was_ thrilled that Choji had showed him the mark, and he didn’t hesitate to show the other boy his own in return.

But…

…if only the two of them had matched.

 Shikamaru fingered the leather strap around his wrist, feeling the sharp sting of disappointment. Choji was his best friend. There was no one closer to him, and he seriously didn’t think it possible for anyone to have a deeper connection than he did with Choji.

Yet… they didn’t match up.

Shikamaru immediately squashed down the feelings of jealousy and resentment towards the person that did match Choji with ruthless conviction. There was no use in blaming someone that he’d never met for something that they didn’t have any control over. He was a Nara, and they always thought things through and calmly made the smartest decisions. After thinking things through carefully he came to the conclusion that just because Choji wasn’t his soulmate it didn’t mean they couldn’t be inseparable best friends. Choji wasn’t going to ditch him the moment some girl with that katana and butterfly combination on her skin waltzed into his life.

Shikamaru knew this logically.

If only that wasn’t the only problem. No. Shikamaru just wanted his match to be Choji because having it otherwise would just be so damn… well… troublesome. Having a best friend soulmate would have suited him best. The very last thing he wanted to deal with was having a romantic soulmate bond.

Worse… the last thing he wanted to be chained to some troublesome _woman_ predetermined by _fate_ of all things.

He’d seen what hell was like growing up. But his father seemed rather oblivious to the fact that he was a man sitting in the roaring flames. Even more worryingly, he seemed to _like_ it there. His father practically worshipped the ground that the nagging, sharp-tongued woman that lived with them walked upon. Shikamaru could never for the life of him figure out _why,_ but he strongly suspected the fact that his parents had matching marks had something to do with it. Why else would a man willingly stay in hell?

Shikamaru was adamant that he was going to marry the least troublesome woman he could find. Someone not too ugly nor too pretty that knew not to nag him or constantly wake him up from his naps. It didn’t matter if they matched his mark or not. If the girl with the tessen on her wrist was even the least bit of a nag, he wasn’t going to give her the time of day, and that was a promise.

He never even considered…

She was just an enemy…

…turned ally…

And really, there was nothing going on between them…

Someone had to keep an eye on the troublesome foreigner whenever they came to the village… right?

…and damn it… if Cho gave him that ‘knowing’ look one more time.

Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to show his best friend that teal coloured mark on his wrist when they were eight?

Choji really needed to stop jumping to conclusions.

Thousands of people wielded tessens… the first girl he met to use one was not his soulmate, because that was statistically unlikely.

Not to mention stupid.

Shikamaru snuck a glance at the young woman currently examining the menu across the table from him. He couldn’t help but notice that she was gnawing at her bottom lip again, frowning as she tried to decide what she wanted to eat. Just as he was about to look back down at his own menu and push all thoughts of soul marks out of his head her gaze flicked up, and she caught him blatantly staring at her.

She quirked an eyebrow, and he scowled back.

Troublesome woman. He thought. What gave this girl the right to waltz into town and push him around? No doubt that she was going to make him foot the bill for dinner tonight, even though she’d dragged him to this restaurant in the first place.

Shikamaru couldn’t stop his cheeks from colouring a little as he hastily broke eye contact and turned his attention back to his own menu.

Her eyes were pretty.

They were a very pleasing mixture of blue and green.

One would probably call them teal, really.

…..

…Troublesome…

Shikamaru let his head fall onto the table with a dull thump!

“Hey… troublesome woman…” Shikamaru’s voice was muffled by the table.

“Yes?” There was a sharp, yet sweet edge to her voice.

“Let me see your wrist.”

There was a long pause. Shikamaru used the time to hope for a meteor to fall from the sky and kill him where he sat so he didn’t have to live with this very troublesome conclusion for longer than a few minutes.

“Took you long enough to grow a pair, crybaby.” She quipped. “Most guys tend to ask around the third or fourth date, not the ninth.”

Shikamaru’s head shot off the table as he stared at Temari in horror. “Ninth?!” he repeated faintly.

The woman rolled those pretty teal eyes at him, a smile quirking on her lips. “Yes Shikamaru. We have been on nine dates. Keep up.”

Frantically he tried to remember all these supposed dates that they’d been on. There were a couple of times that they’d gone out for dinner together for non-work-related reasons. Then there was the festival that she dragged him to. The movie. The time they went swimming. The picnic.

The feeling of horror was growing stronger, and he was sitting there with his mouth open like a goldfish, letting the troublesome Suna kunoichi push him around.

Temari never broke eye contact as she reached down and pushed back her right sleeve, revealing a black tessen wedged upside down in the dirt, casting a long shadow diagonally across her wrist.

Shikamaru whimpered.

He didn’t have the guts to not give Temari the time of day like he’d planned all those years ago in preparation for this moment. She’d chop off his balls if he tried.

Not that he was going to.

He’d never realised before how comfortably warm the flames of hell actually felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Shikamaru and Temari weren't going to end up soulmates! Just for clarification, 'tessen' means battle fan, which is what Temari uses to fight with. I figured most people would know that, but better safe than sorry.  
> With this chapter I've sort of decided to stop writing these in chronological order, so expect for the timeline to jump around from here on out. It's all Shikamaru's fault, he just had to have his chapter span from childhood to the moment a decade or so later when he finally started dating Temari.


	11. The boy with no name

The boy with no name had only one bright point in his life. Day after day, the only thing that kept him going was the ability to gaze out of his glass tank and into the eyes of the girl trapped in the tank opposite. Despite the pain that wracked through his body almost constantly, the boy with no name found the strength to smile at the girl, because there was nothing better than the moment when she would smile back. He knew that she had to be hurting as badly as him, but she still found the strength to smile at him and nod encouragingly. Those scant moments of eye contact kept him going. It didn’t matter that the two of them had not traded a single word in their lives. She was his entire world, and he was hers.

They were alone, floating there in their glass tanks. The yellow-eyed man had long since abandoned them, for reasons that the boy with no name couldn’t figure out. Now that he wasn’t coming to visit them anymore time had ceased to have meaning. There was no day, no night. They could have spent days, weeks, months, _years_ floating there, the boy with no name had no way to know.

The boy with no name eventually realised that he didn’t really care how long it had been. As long as he had the girl, he was content to stay in his glass cocoon forever.

Then came the day of The Crack.

It was so small, barely noticeable. A chip in the glass that only he, the boy who spent most of his time looking at the glass tank in front of him, could have noticed. The girl’s eyes flickered down to The Crack, then back up to meet his gaze. Her smile faltered, and for the first time the boy with no name saw fear in her eyes.

Then she shook her head, shaking her bad feelings away. The next moment, her smile was back in full force. The boy with no name smiled determinedly back. The Crack was small. There was no way that the girl was going to die like all the others.

The boy with no name pointedly ignored the voice in the back of his head that told him otherwise.

The Crack grew, almost to spite their determination. The girl’s smile grew grimmer and grimmer, until it wasn’t a smile anymore, but a proper grimace.

The boy with no name began to fear the day when The Crack took away the last thing he had to call his own.

The girl continued to grimace/smile. The boy with no name couldn’t help but wonder how she managed to keep the hope from fading in her wide eyes. Hope was slowly fading from his own. Despair was creeping in, crushing his soul and making him want to cry out.

But he couldn’t make a sound. Glass tanks filled with liquid muffled noise quite effectively. The boy with no name couldn’t help but wonder if he could even talk. He knew that humans could talk; the yellow-eyed man could do so. The boy with no name couldn’t remember if he himself ever could though. He couldn’t remember very much about the time before the glass tank and the yellow-eyed man.

The Crack grew. And grew. And grew.

The girl’s smile was distorted now. He could barely see her through the spider web of cracks in her glass tank.

The boy with no name began to cry silent tears, salt water mixing into the liquid of the tank seamlessly.

What was he supposed to do without the girl? How could he go on?

The girl looked around, her floating red-brown hair swirling as she moved her head from side to side. Her eyes were wide. She was afraid. Her eyes shifted from the growing cracks in her tank, looking up to make eye contact with him one last time.

She smiled and lifted up her right hand to rest it lightly against the glass. The boy with no name stared.

Imprinted on the girl’s wrist was the image of a twisted little sapling, inked on her skin in a vibrant springtime green.

The boy with no name _screamed_.

The glass tank around the girl shattered, water pouring everywhere. The boy with no name continued to scream, hammering his fists against the glass as the girl, his sole companion, disappeared under the torrent.

Then the water subsided, and the girl was gone. All that remained was the mangled remains of the glass tank, puddles of water and a small gnarled tree twisted up in the wreckage.

The girl was gone.

The boy with no name sobbed into the liquid surrounding him. The world as he knew it was over. He curled up into a ball, floating in the liquid around him. He clutched his wrist to his chest, feeling the burn of the mark imprinted there.

A twisted little sapling, burning a bright autumn red-orange.

The boy with no name had never felt so lost.

He wanted OUT!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... have some angst, free of charge.   
> Like the tags say: not everyone gets a happy ending.   
> No prizes for guessing who the boy with no name is.


	12. Red-Hot/Ice-Cold

Sasuke Uchiha felt cold.

A week ago he burned red-hot, screaming and throwing everything he could get his hands upon in his small hospital room. A week before that, he’d just felt numb. Unable to move, he had just laid there staring at the white ceiling.

Another week before that everything had been different. He couldn’t even remember what he’d felt like back then. Everything from _before_ seemed unreal now. Fake.

It didn’t matter what he’d felt like before though, really. Now he just felt cold.

He stumbled forward, trusting his feet to know where to go. How many times had he walked this way? Hundreds? Thousands? It was certainly a lot. Too many to possibly count.

Would he ever walk this way again after today? He’d heard those people talking about his old neighbourhood. It was to be torn down soon. It was now cursed ground, and nobody wanted to live there.

Sasuke didn’t pause at the gates to the Uchiha clan district. He ducked under the yellow tape that barred entry to the curious and continued his cold shuffle forward. This was his home. They couldn’t shut him out.

Home.

His home the ghost town.

Sasuke didn’t look around, but his wide eyes took in everything in his line of vision as he doggedly made his way home. The wide streets were deserted, void of the life that Sasuke had never seen them empty of before. Not even late in the evenings were they this empty. Shinobi were creatures that never slept sometimes, and the clan compound had always reflected that. Even in the small hours of the morning people still moved in the Uchiha clan district.

It was mid-afternoon, and the place was dead still.

Sasuke’s eyes flickered to the shops that lined the main-street. Their shutters were closed, their wares packed away. They had been closed for over two weeks now, and they would never open again.

Tears pricked Sasuke’s eyes, and he felt the red-hot feeling bubble back. He ruthlessly crushed it down and continued on. He hated being red-hot. Ice-cold was much better. He had better control of himself when he was cold. Control was important, especially to a shinobi.

Sasuke finally reached the end of the street. His feet took him left before he even had to think about it. Then he saw it. The high fence, the traditional entranceway.

Home.

He broke into a run.

The red-hot feeling came back, and this time he couldn’t squash it down. His chest burned as he ran, his sandals slapping against the cobblestones of the street. Before he could really think about it, he was standing in the entrance of his house, shoving the door open with reckless abandon. It was force of habit that made him pause to kick off his shoes. There was no mother left to yell at him if he did not, but it didn’t feel like it to Sasuke.

He couldn’t be an _orphan_. It was too unreal. It just _couldn’t_ be true.

Then he was standing in _that_ room. His chest was heaving and his fists were clenched at his sides, hovering as if he was going to slip into a taijutsu stance at any moment.

Eyes drifted down.

Rusty brown stains.

Something squeezed his chest tight.

Sasuke couldn’t breathe.

Red-hot.

He fell to his knees, sobbing.

He remembered his father, lying face down on the tatami mats. He couldn’t see the stern man’s face, but his whole body was wreathed in a steadily growing pool of blood. It was somewhat obvious that his father would never stand up again.

He remembered his mother, lying face up within arm’s reach of her husband. Her eyes were wide and glassy. Her face was clean apart from a small trickle of blood that crawled down from the corner of her mouth. Her chest was another story. Her dress was damp, stained dark with blood.

He remembered their hands, clasped together tightly, refusing to let go of each other even in death.

Sasuke continued to cry. For his father. For his mother. For the brother who had hurt him so deeply without so much as bruising Sasuke’s pale skin.

Finally, when Sasuke had cried himself out and there were no more tears left to shed, he let himself topple forward, face planting into the tatami mats in sheer exhaustion. For a moment, Sasuke felt closer to his parents, lying there where they had died.

Red-hot faded. Ice-cold returned once more.

Sasuke felt cold.

He stirred, coming to his senses with a small groan. His eyelids fluttered, and suddenly he was staring at the inside of his left wrist.

Sasuke stared.

He had never been the type to worry about the mark adorning his wrist. The girls at the Academy were probably a lot more concerned about it than he was. He kept his mark covered up most days by his long sleeved shirt. Today he was wearing short sleeves; clothes that he had stolen from a hospital closet. Unlike when he usually wore short sleeves he had found no wristband to slip over his wrist when he got changed, so the three linked circles on his wrist were bared to the world.

Sasuke moved slowly, the fingers of his right hand reaching out to lightly trace the mark. He couldn’t help but wonder if his soul mark was pointless now. The clan was gone, and most likely any person matching his soul mark had gone with it. It was common for clan members to match each other. Sasuke was alone now. The only other Uchiha left in the world he knew for a fact didn’t match him.

Was he destined to be alone?

The image of his parent’s clasped hands came back to him, and for the first time it wasn’t a symbol of hopelessness. While his father was stern and aloof, his mother quiet and fierce, Sasuke had no doubt that they loved each other as deeply as any husband and wife.

Yet they were not soulmates.

His mother’s mark was an indigo snake, his father’s a blazing red shuriken. From what he had managed to glean from old stories, his mother had matched her deceased twin brother, while his father had matched his best friend and former battle partner. Neither of them had been marked with a romantic soulmate bond, yet had still managed to fall in love just as deeply as any of the soulmate couples Sasuke had ever met.

The thought was comforting. Maybe… just maybe… even if his soul mark was useless, there were still people out there that would care about him. Maybe there was a chance for family still. Something warm fluttered in Sasuke’s chest, a feeling different to red-hot and ice-cold both.

Then Sasuke remembered _him_. He remembered _his_ words. Sasuke couldn’t afford to forge new bonds. He had a single mission in life, and he refused to let anyone else die because of him.

He clenched his fists and turned his face away from the circles imprinted on his wrist.

Sasuke Uchiha was ice cold once again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because apparently I'm just in that kind of writing mood lately, have some more angst. This time it's Sasuke, so at least it's familiar for most people.  
> Ah Sasuke, thy middle name is most definitely 'Angst'.


	13. Research

Naruto Uzumaki was not a smart boy. In fact, most people that knew him would not hesitate to call him a bit of an idiot. He spent his days sleeping through class and failing every single paper test the Academy teachers threw at him. His afternoons and evenings were spent pulling pranks, then running away from the adult ninja chasing him and wondering how they managed to catch him every time, completely obvious to the fact that the neon orange clothes he wore were not the most subtle garments in the world.

So yes, Naruto Uzumaki was not the sharpest kunai in the holster.

Except for the times when he _was_.

There was a simple, unfortunate fact of life for Naruto, and that is that no one really cared an awful lot about how educated he actually was. While other kids are pushed and poked into playing with educational toys and forced to sit down and do their homework every night, Naruto didn't get anything like that. Everything he learned had to be picked up in the scant moments that his official guardian, the Sandaime Hokage, was paying attention, or on his own. While Naruto was certainly never neglected, and the teachers at school taught him the exact same things as everyone else, he just never really got the same advantages as other kids, and it showed.

Hence his reputation for idiocy.

But it might surprise some (Or maybe not) that Naruto wasn't the type to take this disadvantage lying down. While some children might have believed the adults around them and resigned themselves to the fact that they weren't intelligent, Naruto stubbornly kept going, convinced that he was just as good as everyone else. He just had to figure out a way to catch up.

And so, we join Naruto Uzumaki in media res: AT THE LIBRARY!

Iruka-sensei probably would have had a stroke had he been present. The sight of Naruto Uzumaki curled up in an out-of-sight corner of the public library, a stack of books in front of him, was a bit mind-boggling. That fact that the normally loud boy was now perfectly still and quiet might probably be taken by some people (everyone) as a sign of the apocalypse. Believe it or not though, this was not a once-in-a-blue-moon event. This particular corner of the library was actually Naruto's 'spot'. He had spent many an afternoon before now reading there, and he would continue doing so for many years after.

(On a slightly related note, there is a very funny story of the time that Konoha lost it's Nanadaime Hokage for six hours. Nobody thought to check the library, and Naruto's spot is in such a hidden corner of the place that no one in the building for other reasons caught so much of a glimpse of their illustrious leader.)

Today Naruto was researching yet another thing that should have been taught to him naturally by a parent, yet another fragment of everyday knowledge that had slipped him by.

What exactly _were_ soul marks?

There was actually frustratingly little information on the topic to be found. Luckily Naruto knew so little that the stuff he'd found out from the first couple of books was useful. Prior to looking it up, all Naruto knew was that he had a strange picture on his right wrist that he was supposed to cover up. His Jiji had told him that he was only supposed to show his picture to someone special, because it was an important impression of his inner self.

Naruto knew now that the mark on his wrist wasn't just an 'impression of his inner self' (Whatever that meant), but was actually a physical manifestation of the strongest destined human bond in his life. In other words, it was a picture that was supposed to lead him to his _soulmate_.

As soon as Naruto found out this, he naturally ripped his wristband off to examine his arm. Before now, the picture on his wrist was just something boring that had always been there. Now it was something exciting. Here, emblazoned on his wrist for the world to see, was irrevocable proof that he, Naruto Uzumaki, was not a monster destined to be alone for eternity. He had a soul mark, just like everyone else, which meant that he had a _soulmate!_

He traced the curves of his mark, feeling giddy. Now that he knew that his soulmate was out there, now that he knew that the picture on his wrist was the clue he needed in order to find them, he couldn't just drop the subject. His new goal in life (as well as the whole Hokage thing) was to find the person matching his soul mark.

Then maybe he wouldn't have to be alone all the time.

Time to go back to reading. There had to be more information about how to find your soulmate in his stack of books _somewhere_. He just had to find it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It just seemed too depressing to leave things with Sasuke. So here's Naruto to cheer you all up! (Please ignore the fragments of angst that managed to slip their way into this chapter. Naruto's natural cheerfulness can only do so much in the face of the soul-crushing loneliness that was his early life. God - why does every character in this manga have a depressing backstory?)  
> For maximum enjoyment, imagine that the 'AT THE LIBRARY' was said in exactly the same way as Sokka in the episode 'The Library' of Avatar the Last Airbender.


End file.
